How we document

DAR Talks documents testimony to a standard that can be used — by journalists writing carefully, by lawyers building cases, by tribunals that may, one day, sit. This page sets out how.

No testimony appears on this platform without informed consent from the person who gave it. Informed means:

The survivor was told what DAR Talks is, what publishing means, and who is likely to read the testimony.
She was told what details can be redacted on request — names, locations, relatives, dates — and she chose what to redact.
She was told she can withdraw consent at any future date, and the testimony will be removed from the public archive within 14 days.
The consent conversation was held in her first language, by a trained intake worker, with no time pressure.

We do not pay for testimony. We do offer practical support — travel costs, childcare, a meal, medical referrals — and we record what was offered in the case file.

Verification

A testimony reaches the public archive only after:

A second account, document, or contemporaneous record corroborates at least one specific, falsifiable detail in the testimony — a date, a place, a name, a hospital admission, a contemporaneous photograph, a public report by a humanitarian agency.
Where the testimony names individuals as perpetrators, we either redact the name on publication or follow the higher evidentiary standard our partners use for legal submissions.
A second member of the documentation team reviews the file before publication.

We do not publish testimony we cannot corroborate to this standard. We keep those accounts in a secure archive for future verification.

Redaction

Every published testimony has a redaction log. Where text has been removed, you see [redacted — at survivor's request] or [redacted — to protect a person still in Sudan]. The category is shown; the detail is not.

Security

Survivor identities, contact details, and full case files are held in encrypted storage. The platform team accessing those files use hardware security keys and per-user access controls. The list of people with access is reviewed quarterly. No file is shared by unencrypted email.

Partners

We document in coordination with:

Darfur Women Action Group (DWAG) — long-running US-based partner
Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA Network)
African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS)
Just Access e.V. — Berlin-based human-rights legal practice
The Sudan Record — collaborator on incident-level documentation; maintains the geospatial OSINT database we point to from Documented incidents
Others, as named with DAR

Where a partner has already documented an incident, we link to their record rather than duplicate. The Sudan Record holds the canonical incident database; DAR Talks's own contribution to the documentary record is survivor testimony, held to the consent-first standards above. Where we have documented testimony our partners can use, we share — within the limits set by survivor consent.

What you can do with this archive

You may cite, quote (with attribution to DAR Talks and the testimony identifier), and link freely to any testimony page. You may not re-identify a survivor who has chosen pseudonymity. You may not reproduce full testimonies on other platforms; link instead.

Researchers, journalists, and lawyers requesting access to redacted material for non-public purposes can write to [email protected].

Last updated 17 May 2026.